June 25, 2007
Not White, No Entry: Public Schooler's Rejection
A lesson in quotas and school bureaucracy for an 11-year-old: The Post reoprts that Nikita Rau was denied a place at a magnet school because she's not white. Rau and her parents hoped she would attend Mark Twain School - IS 239, a magnet school in Coney Island (recently reported to have the best Math and English scores for Level 4 students) but a 33-year-old federal ruling is preventing her entry.
The quotas for the school, set in 1974 for desegregation, are 40% minority and 60% white (IS 227 in Queens is the only other NYC public school that also operates under the order). From the Post:
When Nikita recently applied to Mark Twain, she took an admission test geared toward music students and scored a 79.Nikita's father Dr. Anjan Rau railed, "This country believes in racial equality, and we should not face this in America. I think it's morally wrong! She's American born, and she's a U.S. citizen, and [her parents] are both U.S. citizens, but that doesn't count." And he added, "It could hurt her chances of going to Harvard, Yale or Princeton."In May, the Education Department sent her parents a letter that said Nikita was not accepted - even though white students who scored lower on the same test were admitted.
Officials told the Raus that because Nikita is classified as a minority, she would need to score at least 84.4 to be accepted, while white students needed to score 77 or more.
The Department of Education said, "Although we strive to make our enrollment process as equitable as possible, we must comply with the federal court order." The Raus' lawyer wrote a letter to the DOE, "The unconstitutional rejection of my client constitutes discrimination." The Post reports that after they started to inquire about the issue, the DOE offered Nikita a place at "IS 98, the Bay Academy, another Coney Island school for the gifted, albeit one less competitive than Mark Twain."
We wonder what Twain would have made of this.
|
Quotas are stupid.
a agree with JMH
whites complain about this all the time, interestingto see the reverse situation
A 79 doesn't exactly make her a genius, and as a minority she'll have 10x easier time getting into harvard or yale so whatever
The problem is so much deeper though. If ALL NYC schools were improved parents wouldn't have to get so crazy about the magnet schools. The truth is that kids need to get into a good magnet school to get an appropriate middle school / high school education and that's just sad.
Yeah, but the fact that other kids are being accepted with scores below 77 is understandably annoying.
#3, that only applies to "underrepresented minorities". As an Indian it will actually be harder for her, since they are an overrepresented minority. Same for the Chinese.
I don't get it.
Under those quotas - which originally were intended to boost minority enrollment - 60 percent of Mark Twain's student body is set aside for white students, while 40 percent is set aside for minorities.
But it seems like they're doing the exact opposite now, by holding minorities to higher standards than whites.
I think Twain would look at all this and say, "Looks Kafkaesque to me."
Actually, most race issues end up being more Beckett than Kafka.
On a separate but related note, did anyone listen to This American Life this weekend, with the replay of the Harvard trained black attorney that went undercover at a country club as a busboy? Truly depressing in terms of the racial bigotry that is alive and well among whites in america. Just shows you that no matter how much you think you're "in", you're not.
To quote Chris Rock - If it's all white, it's aaaaalll right!
Nope, but I saw the This American Life on one of the cable channels, it was about the hot dog stand in chicago that gets ugly when darkness comes.
Very ugly but I'll try and catch the one you're talking about.
quotas are dumb. minorities were dumb to embrace them. karma sucks.
why is anyone surprised this happens? It happens in schools, in the workplace
Since when did anyone think the best and brightest always get in - when we can have a rainbow coalition - isn't it more important to make sure we have one-legged ALaskan hermaphrodites represented equally?
Not that I have anything against one-legged Alaskan hermaphrodites....
"Nikita's father Dr. Anjan Rau railed, "This country believes in racial equality, and we should not face this in America. I think it's morally wrong! She's American born, and she's a U.S. citizen, and [her parents] are both U.S. citizens, but that doesn't count." And he added, "It could hurt her chances of going to Harvard, Yale or Princeton.""
Ugh, they sound like yet another soulless, grade grubbing family whose child will contribute nothing of community worth to whatever school or college she goes to-this is more about the parents making sure she goes to the right school so that she can go to the right college and they can have sweatshirt bragging rights. So annoying.
ok, the first thing we need to do is understand that a test score of 79 does not = brilliant.
Based strictly on the numbers provided in this article: if 40% needed an 84.4 to get in and 60% needed a 77, then an admissions process based solely on the test would admit anyone who achieved a 79.96 or better, which she did not.
That being said, I want the parents to fight this solely on the hopes that an honest discussion on race-based admissions might (not holding my breath) ensue.
what happens if there isn't a 60% white population? and why is it 60/40? why must they say that white is the majority? This sounds SOOOOO fucked up!!!
thank you #14! you are so right, and it is not just any test, but a music test. Also, going to this school (which i loathed) you test on two different talents. these are supposed to be one's strengths. Anyways, she's better off not going there. They divide you into pre-classified cliques and toture the smart people and put the "dance" and "athletics" talents upon pedestals. But on the moral point, quotas stink.
To see white Privilege and entitlement in action,
watch Christine todd whitman at the congressional hearing right now.
i got my fill of irony for the day...
asians never ask for AA and quotas we get screwed by them!!!
only thing AA benefits are lazy sobs.
Wow. There's no way in hell that this is legal. (Or, if it is, it's seriously screwed up)
And, yes, I am a male, middle-class, white college student who got completely screwed by the college admission process. Equality's the way to go -- no handouts on either side of the table.
Of course, isn't the correlation between income and academic underperformance more strongly correlated than it is with race? I would be quite a bit more accepting toward tilting the tables in favor of kids coming from economically underprivileged areas.
#22: *ding ding ding*
Or, at least that's what I've seen. The poor kids, no matter their color, tend to get a worse hand than the rich kids. Think class, not race.
Wow. A non-white being shut out due to racial quotas and suddenly it's an outrage! You hypocrites never fail to amuse.
PS: Nice title, Jen. I see you're as partisan as ever. Keep up the "struggle."
Question. Why doesn't Nikita just say she's white? I mean she could say her grandma's grandma is white right? Who polices this shit? What happens if Nicole Richie went to this schoool and they wouldn't let her in cause she is black she could say she is white. Is their a DNA test to prove that someone is white? is a jewish person white? this is just a fucking can of worms
This all gravitates down towards the argument concerning Affirmative Action . Look I have to agree with the practice of Affirmative Action based on the fact that the current world we live in is not fair towards minorities . Should all schools be integrated ? Yes . Should the state over see the process ? Maybe . The Bottom line here is if the controls are put back in the hands of administrators image where the schools would be today . If the parents of this "Genius" want there child enrolled in this particular school then they have a right to fight the district in court . Overall this process has to happen, Not because if necessity, but because of integration which leads to fairness within the schools . Posted By; "Still Not Amused"
Your opinion of the current world we live in is exactly that -- YOUR OPINION. It is not a "fact." Fact: In your opinion the world we live in is unfair to minorities.
My child is coming from the same Elementary School as Nikita Rau. In fact, he and Nikita were in the same class until Nikita's parents challenged their way into having her placed in the Delta Program, despite not being accepted at first, thereby bypassing the system that has determined the fate of thousands of other truly gifted and talented students.
Although I believe in challenging the system when appropriate, it is obvious in this case that it is an exploitation of the system for self-promotion.
Guest, your comment regarding "exploitation of the system for self-promotion" is irrelavent. White people shouldn't get "affirmative action" passes over "minorities." The should be held under the same standards. And futhermore Rau is not a minority. Her father is a doctor. Since this country is based on class, he would be a part of a majority with wealth.
It is surprising to see that the "Reverse Racism" argument can still be used in discussions of race and class. I agree with #30 that class continues to be an insidious and divisive issue in our country, and the world. However, I am irked by the idea that "class" somehow renders race invisible or irrelevant.
Affirmative action, in all its flawed forms, at least acknowledges that people experience discrimination based on their perceived race/ethnicity/nationality, and that these acts of discrimination reflect larger, INSTITUTIONALIZED power structures. Race and class, in this country, #30, have always been inherently linked, and will continue to be, through these systems.
As a Mark Twain alum who hated it the whole way through, I am surprised to see that such a quota exists; I only graduated from there six years ago, and don't remember ever hearing about one. Not only does a 60% white quota not make any sense to me, it angers me.
Such clumsy admissions regulations are DEFINITELY left over from another era, when AA was young. That such a quota is still ALLOWED to exist, reinforcing and guaranteeing white majority in a location that is anything but majority white (except if you count Seagate, but that's complicated, too) is a testament to the DOE's inefficacy.
Also, as an Asian-American college student who understands her own relationship to the implementation of affirmative action, I think it is ridiculous to believe that all such quotas should just be done away with. Yes, I think I have been hurt by AA. However, attacking the under-represented groups that AA seeks to work with, is racist.
What's more of interest to me is that this "equitable distribution" thing always entails minorities fighting over a certain percentage of limited resources, whereas rich, upper-middle class whites maintain their firmly-entrenched privilege, access, etc. In terms of class, that means that low-income and working-class whites are also taught to blame minorities, and other targets of social programs, for the resources that the same dominant group is also depriving of them.
I mean, I'm just sayin'.